Interesting Cross Domain Canonical Quirk...
-
We recently ran cross domain canonicals for 2 of our websites. What's interesting is that when I do a search for ""site:domain1.com "product name"" the Title in the SERPs uses the Domain Name from the site the page has been canonicaled to.
So the title for Domain1 (for the search term above) looks like this: Product Name | Keywords | Domain 2
Interesting quirk. Ha anyone else seen this?
-
The SERP did link to the correct (canonical target) domain. If the canonical tag is on domain1.com/product-a, the SERP was correctly pointed at domain2.com/product-a.
Because the page on Domain 1 is supposed to be de-indexed, I was expecting not to see the page at all. This is my first crack at cross domain canonicals. It's an interesting way for Google to handle it.
BTW, from a rankings perspective, the cross domain canonicals were extremely productive. Domain #2 got some huge rankings increases.
I've been tracking the results closely. I should publish the results when I get a chance. The most important result is that the keywords (+/-700) associated with the canonicals improved by an average of 22 positions over the higher position prior to the canonicals being implemented.
What I mean by that is for a keyword (ex: "widgets"), Domain 1 was Ranked 46, and Domain 2 was ranked 57, our average improvement was to position 24, which is 22 positions better than the higher ranked domain (in this case, Domain 1).
Rankings improvements for keywords already on page 1 or Page 2 increased by an average of 2.5 positions over the better ranked domain.
What was really cool was that when we canonicaled in the "wrong" direction, where the keyword ranked higher on the domain that was getting the canonical tag, the results were indistinguishable from the results where we canonicaled in the "correct" direction.
So, in this case, if a keyword ranked higher on domain1.com, and we canonicaled to domain2.com, the average ranking increases (from the higher ranking position) were almost identical to using canonicals in the "correct" direction (from the lower ranking position).
These are both ecommerce sites with DAs of +/-40.
What was also interesting is that Google accepted the canonicals in cases where our product descriptions were markedly different.
-
What was the result you were expecting?
-
Interesting quirk. Ha anyone else seen this?
Working as intended
As Laura said, when you canonical (a) to (b), you expect (b) to become the dominant page / site.
-Andy
-
That's the way it should work. When you set up a cross domain canonical from a URL on domain 1 to a URL on domain 2, you are telling the search engine that you want the content on site 2 to be indexed rather than the same content on site 1. The page content on domain 1 is probably not in the index for search results anymore, but the canonical tag ties the content on the two domains together.
In your example, does the search results link to the content on domain 2? That's what I would expect.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Domain Forwarding? Beneficial?
Good Morning! My father asked me about Domain Forwarding yesterday and it's impact on SEO. The example he gave was if he had website xyz.com and it was an educational website that sold anger management programs would purchasing the domain socialskills.com and pointing that domain at xyz.com help rank for social skills? My immediate answer was no it would not simply because Google doesn't associate any content with that domain, and Domain Forwarding is different that a redirect, which would apply if a website is already established. Am I correct in my thinking? Thanks guys!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
Duplicate Sub-domains Being Indexed
Hi all, I have this site that has a sub-domain that is meant to be a "support" for clients. Some sort of FAQ pages, if you will. A lot of them are dynamic URLs, hence, the title and most of the content are duplicated. Crawl Diagnostics found 52 duplicate content, 138 duplicate title and a lot other errors. My question is, what would be the best practice to fix this issue? Should I noindex and nofollow all of its subdomains? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdwardDennis0 -
Cross-Domain Canonical Showing as inbound links?
I run several ecommerce websites, and there is some overlap in the products offered between sites. To solve this duplicate content issue, I use a cross-domain rel canonical so that there is only 1 authoritative page per product, even if it is sold on multiple sites. However, I am noticing that my inbound link profile is massively expanding because Google sees these as inbound links. The top linking domains for my site are all owned by me, even though there are not any actual links between the sites. Has anyone else experienced this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stevenmusumeche0 -
Moving to a new domain
We currently rank well in our niche on a long (and ambiguous) domain, but want to rebrand and have a shorter and more memorable domain. Keeping in mind we're already pointing good links at the new domain (301ing them to the old site), how long should we age the domain before switching the content and 301ing the old site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | errspy0 -
Subdomain and domain authority
I have Domain A (main content site, lots of content), with a domain authority of 91, and Domain B (blog of the first site, lots of content), with a domain authority of 82. I'm merging the blog into the main domain. Would it be best to keep it as a subdomain, or under a directory?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smorrison0 -
Cross-Domain Canonical and duplicate content
Hi Mozfans! I'm working on seo for one of my new clients and it's a job site (i call the site: Site A).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MaartenvandenBos
The thing is that the client has about 3 sites with the same Jobs on it. I'm pointing a duplicate content problem, only the thing is the jobs on the other sites must stay there. So the client doesn't want to remove them. There is a other (non ranking) reason why. Can i solve the duplicate content problem with a cross-domain canonical?
The client wants to rank well with the site i'm working on (Site A). Thanks! Rand did a whiteboard friday about Cross-Domain Canonical
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/cross-domain-canonical-the-new-301-whiteboard-friday0 -
Canonical tag vs 301
What is the reason that 301 is preferred and not rel canonical tag when it comes to implementing redirect. Page rank will be lost in both cases. So, why prefer one over the other ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Buying a banned domain
Hello all, I've found a exact match keyword domain that I'm able to buy. Problem is that I'm under the impression it might have been banned by google, currently it is only showing adsense without content. The site can't be found using the cache: or site: parameters in Google and the PR is 0. What are your experiences on buying a banned domain and how can I double check if the domain is banned? This blogpost suggests I should not buy it, any other opinions? Thanks. Hellemans
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hellemans0